lazy morning (sort of) and the thoughts tumble out

in 100 minutes, a student will be knocking at my door. i've just arisen from an 11-hour slumber, something i've been wanting for going on two months now. fucking bliss is what it was.

the world's filled with dampness and vehicles rumble past on the nearby busy street, the spitting of water off their high-speed tires audible here, a block and a half away. the dampness has my toes curled with cold but i'm doing nothing to subdue it.

soon i'll groggily head to the store to get a treat: bacon. too rich for my writer's blood most days, but this day is not most days. this day is my sleep-long saturday.

i've been counting the weeks till i get a life, and this is that week. i've been putting off everyone in my world until "september 14th," and now i have a backlog for my social calendar.

i'm just happy to have a social calendar.

one friend came out of the woodwork a while back and we're finally meeting up in a week and a bit. i'm looking forwards to that. we had some great times. a roadtrip across the province was probably the highlight, but lots of great times.

there's two or three other people, too, but all female, and that's all right. i've never had a lot of female friends, so it's interesting to be heading in that direction now. i can use it a bit. too many men around some days.

yesterday, riding through the city, i caught a blonde's eyes and looked away, thinking she thought i was eyeing her boyfriend or something. it wasn't till she had crossed the street and was waiting for the light that i realized it was another of my old best friends, but one i deliberately stopped calling because i was so pissed at how flaky i thought she'd become after my scooter accident a couple years back. it was a weird moment. i rode off. nothing more happened.

it's sad, though, that these people who make our world turn and who play such large roles in defining us can become just a face in a blur of faces on another city street; a face we're just too busy to take a moment out and reacquaint ourselves with.

whatever flakiness she possessed, there was a time when that girl played a monumental role in crafting who i am today. who i am is kind of what i saw her as being. strong, independent, creative, etc. but she always had a man on her arms; she was never, ever single. one day i realized she got her worth from the men in her life and my vision of her came tumbling down.

i write now because of two people in my life. her, and my ex-lover of seven years. in grade 11, she signed up for creative writing, and because i wanted to hang out with her and be her friend, i did, too. next thing you know, i was always journaling, and i loved it.

then i met Him and he and i were off and on for years and years. he was this brilliant artificial intelligence programmer, but he was also a brilliant poet. i loved his writing. i loved that side of him. hell, i loved him. truly, madly, deeply. but he was a broken soul and nothing i could do would change the hurts of his youth and i guess one day he decided i was too good for him, or something else like that. i couldn't deal with the harshness of his hurts and wouldn't allow myself to become an outlet for them... all because he stopped writing. when he stopped writing, his world came apart on him. i couldn't be the glue for all that brokenness.

i hear tell he's married now. it doesn't matter. we ended badly, but i did the ending the last time around. i've seen him twice in the years that have passed. the years have not been his friend, and he looks far older than he should have.

and through the early years of that relationship, the only person that ever understood what i saw in him was this friend i'm meeting in a 10 or so days. she understood that when i was with him it seemed like the world outside stopped for us. she understood it all. she never forgave him his trespasses, and i forgave far too many. funny how clear the wrongs seem the more years stand between then and now, but no matter how often i was hurt and broken-hearted as i waited to see if he would grow past his past, it's undeniable how much he influenced the writer i am.

he forced me to live the examined life. he taught me the innerworkings of logic. he made me understand that art and science have an ongoing relationship. he pushed me to express myself and believed i could be a good writer if i really put my mind to it. his best friend was also a great writer, and was hurt by him as often as i was. but the best friend, by proxy, also greatly influenced my writing.

and all that came from one face on one street in one fleeting moment. a lifetime hit me in sixty seconds or less. if anyone's broken my heart the best, i'd say it was her. and she never even meant to. i think a part of her was in love with me, since she went both ways. she always took the opportunity, no matter how long had passed, to bring up that ex of mine and try to run him down.

i don't work that way. i don't try to build myself up by bringing others down, not when i'm in my normal state of mind, that is. (we all have failures. i know mine.) it's possible to love someone for what they've done for you while still being completely aware that they can never, ever be in your life again. it's possible to separate their wrongs from all the things right about them. it's possible to cherish the lessons learned while trying to forget and forgive the hurts. and she never learned that.

yeah. i lived a lifetime yesterday. so many great people pepper my past. it's a shame they fade away like they have.